Count Basie family papers and artifacts

Overview

William James "Count" Basie (1904 August 21 - 1984 April 26) was an African American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. He was married to Catherine Morgan Basie (1914 December 3 – 1983 April 11), an African American burlesque dancer and singer who later became a community organizer and activist. They had one daughter, Diane Lillian Basie (1944 February 6 – 2022 October 15), who was born with cerebral palsy and lived at home with her parents and caretakers until her death. The Basie family also included several unofficially adopted children: Aaron Woodward III, Rosemary (Holman) Matthews, Olivia (Hasell) Simmons, Pamela Jackson, and Lamont Gilmore.

Count Basie’s early years

Count Basie was born in Red Bank, New Jersey to Harvey Lee Basie and Lillian “Lilly Ann” Childs Basie. They had one other son, Leroy, who died in childhood. Count Basie’s first musical forays were as a drummer, but he learned to play piano by taking lessons from a local teacher. He left middle school and worked at the nearby movie theater, changing film reels and playing accompaniments for silent films. In 1924 he moved to New York City, where he met and was influenced by stride pianists James P. Johnson and Fats Waller, who helped Basie learn to play the organ, the instrument he preferred when playing at home for fun. Shortly after moving to New York, he obtained work as a vaudeville pianist and toured across the country. In 1928 he started performing with Walter Page’s Blue Devils, eventually landing in Kansas City, where in 1929 he began his association with Bennie Moten’s Orchestra. When Moten died in 1935, Basie formed his own nine-piece group, the Barons of Rhythm, featuring many of Moten’s personnel as well as members of the Blue Devils. He also started using the name “Count Basie.” By 1937, the Barons of Rhythm had grown to 13 members and relocated to New York City, where they made their first recordings as Count Basie and his Orchestra.

Catherine Basie’s early years

Catherine Morgan Basie was born in Columbus, Ohio, to Warren Morgan and Helen Cobb Morgan, and had one sister, Ruby, and two brothers, Leonard and Milton. Catherine graduated from Central High School, and soon thereafter was a contender for the 1936 Olympics as a champion backstroke swimmer. Not being able to afford the training, she instead focused on her career as a dancer, singer, and entertainer, performing with the Whitman Sisters vaudeville act, but soon she was on her own billing as Princess Aloha, appearing in film shorts and touring on the burlesque circuit.

Marriage and family

Catherine and Count Basie first met in 1931 when they were both performing in Philadelphia, but the two did not become romantically involved until Catherine’s five-year marriage to Jimmy Miller ended in 1940. Count Basie was also previously married, from 1930-1935, to Vivian Lee Winn. In his autobiography, Count Basie states the date and location of his and Catherine’s marriage as August 21, 1942 in Seattle, Washington, but contemporary published accounts claim the couple eloped in early 1943. According to the marriage license on file in the Kings County, Washington archives, the Basies were married July 13, 1950.¹

In 1944, Catherine gave birth to their daughter, Diane Basie, in Cleveland, Ohio, where Catherine had gone to stay with her mother for the birth and Diane’s infancy. She was born with cerebral palsy, requiring daily full-time care and support for the duration of her life. When Catherine returned to New York City, the family moved to an apartment in Manhattan, and in 1946, they bought a home in Addisleigh Park in Saint Albans, Queens, New York, where they installed a swimming pool, the site of frequent neighborhood gatherings and charitable events. The Basies maintained the swimming pool for neighborhood use even after moving permanently to Freeport, Grand Bahama in 1973. Neighborhood friends included Ella Fitzgerald, Jackie Robinson, Joe Louis, Lena Horne, Illinois Jacquet, and Milt and Mona Hinton.

Count Basie toured extensively with the Count Basie Orchestra, more than 300 nights each year, so he was not often home on a daily or even weekly basis. Although Catherine, and sometimes Diane, traveled with the Count Basie Orchestra regularly (particularly on overseas trips) Catherine used her time away from her husband to lead and participate in various social, charitable, and civic organizations and programs; manage the household and family’s budget; and care for Diane with support from family and caretakers, including nurse Dee Dee Williams, neighbor and unofficially adopted daughter Rosemary Matthews, and Catherine’s sister-in-law, Carrie Morgan.

Catherine Basie charitable and civic work

In addition to serving as president of the Rinkeydinks, a charitable organization whose membership consisted primarily of the wives of jazz musicians, Catherine held leadership positions in the National Conference of Christians and Jews (NCCJ), New York Urban League, Lighthouse for the Blind, South Jamaica Community Council, and the Multiple Sclerosis Society, among others. She was a lifetime member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and involved with local, regional, and national civic and charitable organizations. Some of her key interests were civil rights, mental and physical health, issues related to children and young people, and public education. She was appointed Community Mayor of Queens, and was the recipient of many honors, including the 1961 NCCJ Brotherhood Award and being named Woman of the Year in 1960 by the Zeta Phi Beta sorority as well as in 1962 by the Jewish War Veterans of the United States, Queens County Council Ladies Auxiliary.

Count Basie Orchestra

With the exception of several core musicians who stayed with the band for long stretches, the Count Basie Orchestra’s personnel changed regularly over the years, and musicians would often leave only to return later either as a guest soloist or sometimes again as a permanent member of the lineup. Between 1936 and 1938, Count Basie enlarged the group, adding Buck Clayton on trumpet, singers Jimmy Rushing and Billie Holiday, Earle Warren on alto saxophone, Bennie Morton and Dicky Wells on trombone, Helen Humes (replacing Holiday), and Harry “Sweets” Edison on trumpet. They joined band members Oran “Hot Lips” Page on trumpet, Herschel Evans and Lester Young on tenor saxophone, Eddie Durham on trombone and sometimes guitar (also an arranger for the band), Buster Smith on alto saxophone, and the “All American” rhythm section of Walter Page on bass, Jo Jones on drums, and Freddie Green on guitar. (Green was in the Basie Orchestra for fifty years until his death in 1987, longer than any other band member.)

The band’s popularity grew exponentially during the late 1930s and early 1940s, starting with a string of hits for Decca Records, including “Jumpin’ at the Woodside” and “One O'Clock Jump.” “Lester Leaps In,” recorded for Vocalion, was another major hit for the band during this period. The group’s performances were regularly broadcast on radio networks across North America, and they recorded frequently, except during the 1942-1944 and 1948 musicians’ strikes by the American Federation of Musicians, which limited recording opportunities for all union members. By the end of the 1940s, big band jazz was declining in popularity and bookings were becoming more difficult to negotiate at the level the band required. In 1950 Count Basie decided to break up the group and instead led smaller combos of six to nine players for a brief stint.

In 1951 he re-formed the sixteen-piece big band, the group that would become his most successful and enduring, which continued to perform and record as “Count Basie and His Orchestra.” By mid-1952 the lineup of the newly-reconfigured ensemble had mostly stabilized and consisted of Paul Campbell, Wendell Culley, Joe Newman, and Reunald Jones on trumpet; Henry Coker, Benny Powell, and Jimmy Wilkins on trombone; Paul Quinichette and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis on tenor saxophone; Marshal Royal as deputy music director, alto saxophonist, and clarinetist; Ernie Wilkins on alto and tenor saxophone; Charlie Fowlkes on baritone saxophone; Gus Johnson on drums; Freddie Green on guitar; Jimmy Lewis on bass (soon to be replaced by Gene Ramey and then Eddie Jones, respectively); Bixie Crawford as frequent vocalist; and Count Basie as pianist and leader. Over the course of coming years, new Count Basie Orchestra personnel would include Thad Jones on trumpet (also an arranger for the band), Joe Wilder on trumpet, Sonny Payne on drums, Bill Hughes on trombone, Frank Foster on various reed instruments, and Frank Wess on tenor saxophone and flute (also an arranger for the band). The group toured internationally and made some of Basie’s most popular recordings, including “April in Paris,” “Shiny Stockings,” “L’il Darling,” and the single “Everyday I Have the Blues” (Basie’s biggest hit) with singer Joe Williams, who performed regularly with the band. Starting in the late 1950s, the Count increasingly recorded with top singers of the day, including Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Billy Eckstine.

As the Count’s fame grew, his and Catherine’s world expanded. The orchestra gave a command performance for Queen Elizabeth II at the London Palladium in 1957, after their first European tour in 1954, and performed at one of the inaugural balls for President John F. Kennedy in 1961. This was also when Count and Catherine Basie operated a nightclub, Count Basie’s Lounge, in New York City, starting around 1957. In 1958, he was first African American musician to win a GRAMMY Award (in fact, he won two that year), and he would win seven more during the next two decades. He was a Downbeat international critics’ poll winner from 1952 to 1956.

Basie recorded for Roulette Records between 1957 and 1962 with producer Teddy Reig and made the first of three tours of Japan in 1963. Throughout the 1960s, the Count Basie Orchestra toured extensively and made numerous television and film appearances and many recordings, including collaborations with Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. The Orchestra also played many new arrangements written by Benny Carter, Chico O’Farrill, Frank Foster, Quincy Jones, Sammy Nestico, Bill Holman, and Eric Dixon.

From 1972 until 1984, Count Basie recorded for Pablo Records, often in small group jam sessions, with musicians including Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald (with whom he frequently toured), Dizzy Gillespie, J.J. Johnson, Zoot Sims, Roy Eldridge, Milt Jackson, Joe Pass, Ray Brown, Louie Bellson, blues singer Joe Turner, and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson.

Later years

In 1974, one year after the Basies moved permanently to Freeport, Catherine organized a gala fundraiser for a Freeport hospital in honor of the Count’s 70th birthday, inviting Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan to be the guest artists with the Count Basie Orchestra. The Count’s 70th was feted again with a “Royal Salute” at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (his was the first African American band to play the Waldorf, in 1957) to benefit the United Negro College Fund and the Catherine and Count Basie Scholarship Fund for the NCCJ.

As a recipient of Kennedy Center Honors in 1981, the Count was described by President Reagan as "among the handful of musicians that helped change the path of American music in the 30s and 40s.” He received honorary degrees from International University, the Philadelphia Academy of Music, the Berklee College of Music, Montclair State College, Union College, Monmouth College, Dowling College, and the University of Missouri as well as numerous citations and proclamations from local, state, and federal government officials.

Basie persevered through bouts of declining health and took several months off following a heart attack in 1976. His mobility declined in later years, leading to his use of a motorized wheelchair both on the road and at home. Catherine died of a heart attack in 1983 at their home in the Bahamas. Count Basie died the next year of pancreatic cancer in a Florida hospital, shortly after his last performance with the Count Basie Orchestra on April 13th in Burlington, Vermont. Diane Basie died in Florida after suffering a heart attack in 2022.

1. Basie, Count. Good Morning Blues. (Random House: New York, 1985), 259. Walker, Danton. “New York Letter.” The Philadelphia Inquirer Public Ledger (1934-1969), January 12, 1943 (Page 15 of 34), accessed online November 1, 2022. Washington State Archives; Olympia, Washington; Washington Marriage Records, 1854-2013; Reference Number: kingcoarchmc166491, accessed online November 1, 2022.